Day Thirty-Nine

“Yesterday during my 20 mile walk out of Kansas and into Missouri, I was thinking about a story I heard years ago about an old method for hunting tigers. Hunters would use long sheets of thin cloth, only 3’ to 4’ high to make a giant funnel, miles across at the wide end, narrowing down to a single tree at the small end. Men on elephants, spaced a 1/4 mile apart, would enter the wide end of the funnel beating sticks together. Any tigers encased by the funnel would move away from the noise. In the single tree would be a man with a rifle. Eventually every tiger would be killed, for although any tiger could easily jump the flimsy cloth, no tiger will jump if it cannot see where it will land. I wonder if a similar fear is keeping us from cooperating globally.”